u/Unaccomplishedcow

Someone told me this would be better for the neutral sub, so I'm kind of just repeating what I said here, with some more thoughts added on at the end.

I want to preface this by saying I did like the album, and I am a fan; I'm here because this is a problem I have with the album and I don't think the fan spaces will hear me out. Olivia Rodrigo sets up consequences and then refuses to deliver in the album, and I think that really undermines the writing. Let me explain.

In Stupid Song, the main character is said to be a "Car speeding down the boulevard without a break", in The Cure, the main character's head is full of poison which she doesn't have a cure for. The lead single is literally called "Drop Dead." The main character can't eat, sleep, or drink much beyond liquor. She is pointing Chekhov's gun at the main character's head, and then putting it down and saying "Oh actually the character regrets the time she had holding the gun and wants the gun to say something honest so she can forget it". Like what?

Now, I want to address the immediate counterpoint: "it's autobiographical! She can't write a story about the main character dying if she's the main character!" Which would be a good argument if it was based in reality. Except it's already a work of fiction. She already is talking about how she "had big dreams 'till [she] tied [herself] to [her boyfriend]" while IRL she was filling stadiums and winning awards. She was singing about not eating, sleeping, or leaving the house meanwhile in real life she was leaving the house just fine. It is already a work of fiction, and that's okay. It's perfectly in the line of Avril's song Girlfriend (who Olivia Rodrigo positions herself as the successor to). With that out of the way, we can analyze it as a work of fiction because we know that it is.

You cannot set up that the main character is going to die and then refuse to kill the main character. If the car is speeding down the boulevard without a break, you cannot make the car pull over, cry on the curb, and then regret speeding. The car has to crash. If the main character's head is full of poison, the poison has to work. You cannot have the main character be a zombie in her body with maggots for brains without being a corpse. It cannot "all turn black" unless it "all turns black".

Now, some may argue that the album is arguing that's what would have happened if the man had stayed, but the man leaving is what saved the main character. Except the main character already crossed the point of no return. She said her head is full of poison. Not her arm. Not her extremities. Her head. I get it's a metaphor but the entire point of the metaphor is that it has to speak to what the author is trying to convey. If your head is full of poison (for which you don't have the cure), it's too late to do shit about it. I think the setup was incredible. She had an incredible story, but then rather than finishing it to its natural conclusion (something like whiskey lullaby) Olivia Rodrigo refused to kill off the main character, the car ended up actually having a break and pulling over and regretting speeding, the antidote was there all along, and it never actually all turned black.

The problem is that this also can send a bad message to the people who look up to her. Think about what this is saying: if your head is full of poison, if your relationship is killing you, if you're falling apart it doesn't matter. You don't need to exert any agency over your situation. You just need to wait for other people to save you (the man leaving the main character in Less). Then you just need to wait for the memories to turn black all on their own. I'm not saying that every song needs a good theme, but I am saying that the themes aren't enough to justify completely going off the tracks of where the story was headed. Every motif and metaphor used in the album (and the name of the lead single) all pointed towards death. Therefore, there needs to be death, or at least a genuinely strong reason to not lead to death. I'm fine with expectations being subverted (the entire album subverts expectations around love beautifully) but there needs to be a reason for the expectations to be subverted. There is no reason for the main character to get better without her acting on anything.

These are just my opinions. Again, I think the album is amazing. I loved the album, I've heard every track multiple times. I just think that overall it falls flat with payoff to the setup with regard to the story.

The freaky kind, not the hose kind. I discovered I have one and I do not want it. I want to get rid of it. Is there anything I can do about this? Is there any way to get rid of it? I figured reddit was as good a place to ask as any. If you guys have any idea for how to get rid of it, please let me know!

Neither do I, fahahaha, so I'll do it now. We should make a separate subreddit for the freakyposters so that they have their own place to post, and fwhahaha can remain within more... acceptable freak limits. Call it something like r/nsfwahaha or something like that. Credit to Altair01010 for the name. But yeah, I just think it would be a really good idea.

https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2026/06/fox_may-28-june-1-2026_complete_ohio_topline_june-3-release.pdf

I'm aware this topic has been debated to death since the song came out. However, from everything I've seen, the vast majority of this debate tends to revolve around the lyrics. Whether the lyrics (which openly call the girl "smart" and "sexy") are about envy or love. I am taking a different approach. Lacy by Olivia Rodrigo is in the key of Eb major (with E flat major's accompanying minor being C).

So, why is the key of the song important? The keys of songs are not just ways to make the songs sound pretty, they're how you convey emotion. According to the University of Michigan, "One of the most influential descriptions of characteristics shared in German-speaking cultures in the late 18th and early 19th century was from from Christian Schubart's Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst (1806", this was a work that inspired and influenced people such Beethoven, and ultimately shaped music moving forward.

In Schubart's work, it is outlined that E flat major is "The key of love, of devotion, of intimate conversation with God." So Rodrigo wrote this song about how sexy the other girl is in the key of love and devotion, and I'm supposed to believe that it's just about envy? I'm not buying it. Let's also address Eb major's accompanying minor, C minor. Schubart's work describes C minor as "Declaration of love and at the same time the lament of unhappy love. All languishing, longing, sighing of the love-sick soul lies in this key." Unhappy love, like love you mistake for envy, like the love described in Lacy.

In conclusion, it's a song about how sexy the other girl is, written in the key of love and devotion, and the accompanying minor of unhappy love. I feel as though that is more than enough evidence to say it is a song that is not just about envy.